A bronze menagerie

CONCORD - Have you ever wondered how it would feel to stick your hand into the shaggy coat of a two-humped Bactrian camel and touch its muscles flexing beneath its leathery skin?

Chris Bergeron

Have you ever wondered how it would feel to stick your hand into the shaggy coat of a two-humped Bactrian camel and touch its muscles flexing beneath its leathery skin?

If you would like to but don't have a camel in your backyard, try the next best thing: run your fingers across Carol Spack's bronze sculpture of "A Camel Named Bobby" at the Montague Gallery in Concord.

The artist, who is also a second-term Framingham Planning Board member, is exhibiting a bronze menagerie of critters with character at the Walden Street gallery.

Visitors can tweak the snout of an adorable Gloucestershire Old Spot pig named Patrick snoozing in the hay. Or they can feel the sturdy anatomy of a rare breed of Poitou donkeys shaped by Spack's hands initially at a Hawley, Mass., farm and later in her Fountain Street studio.

She is showing and selling 10 limited edition bronze sculptures at Montague Gallery.

Spack's exhibit, "Animal Sculpture: Life on the Farm," will remain on display through late December, according to owner William Montague.

Founded by Montague 30 years ago, the gallery specializes in sculptures and a line of collectibles called the Wee Forest Folk made by the Peterson family of Concord. His store currently shares space with the Renjeau Galleries, which sells paintings, graphics and sculptures.

A Framingham resident since 1993, Spack juggles her complementary avocations as an artist, attorney and town planner.

She said her interest in sculpting animals dates back to her preteen years when she first studied art in school.

"I work from life. If I drive by a farm and see something interesting, I make arrangements to get a closer look," she said at the gallery. "I've always loved sculpting animals. It's a thread I've picked up over the last several years."

A philosophy major at Radcliffe College who earned a master's degree in city planning from MIT in 1981 and a law degree from Northeastern University three years later. Spack began exhibiting her art in 1980.

In recent years she has focused on sculpting natural objects in a series of "bark balls" and "fern bowls" that convey both the vitality of organic life and the permanence of bronze. Several of Spack's works are displayed at Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain and several bark balls surround a hemlock tree at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln.

Spack attributed her change of focus from organic objects to animals to the death in 2003 of her beloved miniature schnauzer Honey Bear who had accompanied her for years on daily walks. "I haven't been out walking as much and I turned my attention to animals," she said. "On a deeply personal level, it changed my focus."

In order to capture in bronze what she describes as the "animal spirit" of her subjects, Spack visits farms where they live, staying in nearby guest houses.

She found Bobby the camel at Tregellys Fiber Farm in Hawley where animals, including yaks and llamas, are bred for their luxuriant hair.

After receiving permission from the owners, she spends a day or two sketching her subjects "from all directions" to study their anatomy and to sense their "personalities" and "behavioral quirks."

Check out Bobby the camel's drooping lips and snout. Do you sense that strange camel mix of stubbornness and goofy charm? Turning to her bronze baby donkey, she pointed out its unusually long ears and characteristic shaggy coat "like dreadlocks."

"I'm trying to catch their personality, that 'Oh, my God, moment' that causes people to look at those lips," said Spack, gazing affectionately at Bobby. "I expect people to touch them. I want to give people a visceral feel of the animals I sculpt."

In order to give her sculptures their lifelike feel, Spack will stroke their coats, touch their flanks or rub her hands along their heads as she places clay onto wire-framed model she makes of their bodies.

"I reach out and touch them in different ways," she said. "Pigs can be very bristly."

Spack uses a technique known as "lost wax bronze casting." After building her models, she uses her fingers rather than a sculpting knife to place plasticine clay on the wire frames she has built.

"In a sense, I work from inside out," she said. "Working with my fingers directly is a way to create art that invites the touch."

While working on one sculpture, she spent three weeks sleeping in a barn where chickens roosted. She said the time spent observing her animal subjects is necessary to catch their characteristic postures and features.

"What I try to understand first is (the animal's) characteristic pose and gestures," she said.

After her initial clay model is complete, Spack covers it with a flexible rubber mold. The mold is used to make a wax cast which she takes to a Rhode Island foundry where a final mold is made from which the bronze sculptures are cast. In keeping with tradition, she generally makes limited editions of 10 sculptures of each figure for sale.

Spack estimated she currently devotes about 10 percent of her time to her law practice, mostly representing "existing clients" and nonprofits on real estate matters.

For her next phase, Spack plans to sculpt marine life, including starfish and lobsters she observed during a vacation in Maine.

Spack believes her sculptures and Planning Board work both share a respect for natural harmony and protection of the environment.

"I believe that humans are part of the world and part of a larger community, and what humans do to the landscape impacts other forms of life," she said. "In both fields, I'm trying to express a sense of humanistic values."

THE ESSENTIALS

The Montague Gallery is located at 10 Walden St. in downtown Concord. It is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. For information, call 978-287-4800 or visit www.Montaguegallery.com.